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From the Shop and Showroom

An integral part of owning a special car, be it a Ferrari or a Firebird, is the necessity of selling it one day. Perhaps your interest has waned or you’re ready to experience the next rung up the ladder. Typical family cars are usually simply traded in on the next one because there are logistical advantages with taxes, finance payoffs and expediency. But a classic or collector car rarely accommodates a trade scenario very well and generally needs to be turned into cash for the next acquisition. Let's discuss why.

With a nod to my friend Dave Olimpi for coining the phrase, ‘sittin’ disease’ is a great catch-all to describe the varied deterioration all cars suffer when allowed to, well, sit. Most classic car buffs realize the problem exists, but often don’t appreciate how pervasive—and expensive—it can be to undergo classic car restoration on an old car that’s been hibernating for years.

Farland Classic Restoration has been around since 1991. We are a leader in the restoration of investment-level classic cars. One look at the shop tells you that we are very serious about the work that we do. For those who haven't seen it, here's a quick tour!

Each of us, at one time or another, have started projects that never quite got finished, from model airplanes as kids to more complicated jobs later on. After the acceptance it wasn’t going to get done, the project was disposed of somehow or finished by hired help and we moved on.

Our adjacent blog story outlines the history of the 412’s development by Ferrari, from their earlier, simpler 2+2s to the emergence of Ferrari’s first real luxury car. One of our clients was searching for one of these ‘80s masterpieces and we were fortunate to locate one squirreled away in a Houston warehouse after the former owner passed away.

Even early on, Enzo Ferrari catered to a very select, fortunate clientele, many of whom were European royalty, film stars and producers or just really, really wealthy. It was the patronage of these individuals who bought his road cars that funded Ferrari’s racing efforts. Many are the one-off, specially-outfitted cars done for important clients, and as the years went by, more engineering effort went into developing cars that were luxurious by intent, like the 250GT Lusso, whose name actually means ‘luxury’ in Italian.

For many years, the various 2+2 model Ferraris have been considered ugly ducklings and only worth a mere fraction of their 12-cylinder siblings’ value. The 250 GTE, Ferrari’s first 2+2, debuted in 1960 and quickly became a popular car, even when sitting next to the other contemporary 250-series icons, like the SWB and California Spiders, because it was a more practical automobile.

Since 2013,
many specialty cars have exploded even more dramatically in value. Porsche 930 Turbos have gone from being cheap cars to commanding very significant money. Ferraris last went nuts in 1988 when Enzo died, but the past eighteen months have seen even more phenomenal appreciation in their
normal productioncars like the 308 & 328 series, the previously-unsellable V12 2+2s and even the trouble-prone F355s.